Before becoming Minister of Interior, Hara Takashi was vice President of Furukawa Mining Co. Therefore, he was familiar with the situation in the Watarase River basin. The first thing Hara did was to change the police structure from the Prime Minister to being under the direct control of the Minister of the Interior. (This is why after the Pacific War, politicians who came from the Home Ministry bureaucracy are sometimes called "police bureaucrats.)
This allowed the government to smoothly suppress disturbances and riots.
Next, Hara notified the eviction deadline through Tochigi Prefecture. He ordered villagers to vacate by April 17. For this purpose, he decided to close the elementary school in Yanaka Village and incorporate Yanaka Village into the neighbouring town of Fujioka.
Shozo Tanaka vehemently criticized these policies, saying "The nation is already dead!!," and continued to campaign against them.
However, many Yanaka Villagers were unable to keep up with Shozo's fierce opposition, and when the purchase price of the land was increased, many of them moved to other prefectures.
We cannot accuse Villagers of being a "traitor" or a "crook".
Human beings cannot remain in a state of tension all the time. Honestly, they wanted to get comfortable.
Thus, the population of Yanaka Village, which had 2,400 residents, decreased to 1,000 by the end of July, and the village virtually disappeared when it was merged with Fujioka Town.
1907.
The government notified that the "Eminent Domain Expropriation Law" would be applied to the remaining people.
